Sliding doors - Dramatics, Your honor
by MyosotisMauve
Summary: One-shot/Might be more - Like in the movie with Gwyneth Paltrow, a little change, almost an insignificat one, and the whole story takes another turn. Will is not in court in the episode 5-15, Alicia is and she is the one who is shot. - A little What if?, probably AU, unbeta-ed, that will be continued, one day. Hope you like it.
1. 1 Alicia

The shot was loud and unexpected and it _burned_.

She had never been shot – and how crazy it was that she had to say that, and how crazy was that now she could flag that particular box in her non existent and not wanted list – she had never been hurt that much, never seen so much of her own blood on her hands.

Everything was too fast to really understand what was happening: one moment she was at the bar in front of the judge, arguing with SA Polmar like no one else was in court but the three of them, and the next she was facing her own client, the gun on his hands pointed in her direction, and then she was on the ground, one hand instinctively at her neck and then again in front of her to see what the stickness was and the blood was so red and was _her_ blood… and _all was burning_.

When the parents of her client called few days before the trial and told her they weren't satisfied with Will's defense of their son and that they wanted her to step in instead, the first thing she had thought was to call Will to inform him. It wasn't that unusual that a client wanted to change his or hers attorney, but it as extremely unusual that late in the trial they didn't only want to change the lawyer but also the firm. Expecially not to one so new and in such bad relationship with each other.

She tried to tell them that it wasn't very wise to change lawyer so late in the trial and that Will Gardner was one of the best lawyer she knew, but they were irremovable and, well, she was no one to reject a paying client, even if that meant working very late the next few days.

Of course he didn't like very much to lose a client, to her firm none the less, but in the end they hadn't parted with bitter words, not this time.

" _I decided to warn you. I was thinking if I was in your shoes and I had a client calling behind my back, I would want to know."_

" _Alicia. Thanks."_

" _Hey, we might have our differences, but you're the better lawyer."_

" _I am, aren't I?"_

In the end, they had smiled to each other and that was really a big step forward in their relationship later on.

The brief conversation, his soft eyes and his croocked smile made her remember why she fell in love with him so hard when they were young, and again when they met for the first time in twenty years and probably why some part of her will always fall in love with him.

In the end, she was there, on the floor, and someone – and it was by chance Polmar? She couldn't tell, everything seemed not in focus and not really important in that moment – was moving her through the room and pressing a hand on her neck and on her chest, where it burned most.

Everything was becoming even blurrier and she knew that someone was talking but she could not hear a thing or make out a single, discernable, word. Something in her knew that she was in shock and that she was losing to much blood and that the only thing that was stopping her to bleed out on the court floor was a pair of hands pressing very firmly on her wounds, but that something couldn't stop the panic that was growing in her or giving her some comfort at all.

She was scared. She didn't want to die, not there. Her children still needed her, her husband, her mother and brother, Cary and her firm needed her. Will.. She couldn't die and leave all the thing with Will unresolved, not now that they could talk civilly and not before she could apologize for hurting him. She tried to speak, she needed to tell him.

"W..W.. Will…" she murmured without making a real, audible, sound.

" _Alicia!"_ Kalinda? What was she doing there? She sounded not very Kalinda-like, her voice almost cracking just like before crying.

" _Paramedics!"_ She heard at last, before everything became dark and unconsciousness took her.


	2. 2 Will

**Hi everyone! Thank you very much for your comments, they were super kind and made me blush! (I'm like a little girl on this ^^")**

 **I started this fic with the intention of it being a oneshot but, well.. I wanted a fix it. I loved the show, but we will not be fans if we didn't want to change and experiments with our favourite characters!**

 **Probably you have notice already, but I want to specify that the part in** _ **italics**_ **are from TGW.**

 **This all story in unbeta-ed and I'm sorry for brutal grammar error, English is not my first language ^^**

 **Thank you all for reading this, I hope you'll like this too!**

 **2\. Will**

Of course Will was pissed of losing a client just before the trial, and of course he should have been more pissed about losing them to Alicia's (and Cary's, his mind added in a second moment) firm but… he was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of hating, tired of even see her (them) winning cleverly in court and force himself to remember to not smile with pride. Because they were, even after everything, his own ex-protégée.

So yes, when Alicia came to him to inform him of his client bad behaviour he was less pissed than everyone would have thought, it gave him the chance to have the nicest conversation in months with Alicia and, in the end, it gave him more time to focus on his own work and on the investigation that was going to ruin his still unsteady career.

Will sighed, a hand on his face, pincing the top of his nose, trying to make the stress magically go away. For some reason it never worked for him before and, of course, it didn't work this time.

But what always had worked for him was a glass of scotch, neat, and throwing his baseball as far as he could. He was in the office, so the baseball was out of the game, and if someone would have argued that it was too early to drink… well, screw them. They didn't have his life and his struggling right now. And was none of their business, either.

With the glass finally in his hands he took a sip, relaxing in his way too comfortable chair and grimacing immediately after: it was awful and it burned like hell, and he just remember that the bottle was a present from David Lee and he gave it to him with a knowing smile that really should have rang some bells in him. However, Will took another sip.

It never ends. He will always be on a thin edge, forever close to the precipice and always fighting to be safe. With a barely suppressed laugh he thought that probably it was the price to work as a defense attorney.

His cellphone rang and Will was pleased enough to leave that honestly awful drink and thoughts to another time, when he really would have liked to wallow in his misery and not when he had real life and work to do.

Kalinda.

Did she thought about what he said to her the previous night? Or was she calling him to tell that she wanted to quit, in spite of everything? He was really tempted to not answering but he couldn't do that to her. He never missed her call, not on purpose.

"Kalinda, hi."

" _Will? It's me. Alicia has been shot._ "

Will blinked, twice, trying to make the words have some meanings because suddenly nothing had any sense at all. He was confused and he found himself staring at the glass, even glaring at it because it wasn't shattered on the floor like it should be, like it was its fault he himself was shattering in its place.

 _It can not be.._

" _She… Wh-what you mean?_ " he stuttered.

" _There was.. uh.. a gunfire at the courthouse and.. uh.. she was shot._ " The voice crackled in the microphone but it was clear and soft, and softness of Kalinda's voice was even more confusing because she was never, _never,_ that soft when she talk to him.

" _Alicia…_ " He gulped soundly. " _I-I don't understand. By whom?_ "

" _By her client. I'm at the hospital now a-and.._ " Kalinda's voice cracked then and she started to cry "It's v-very bad. She's in surgery right now but they don't know if she will m-make it. I-I'm sorry, Will.."

His blood became ice in his veins and the world started to spin around him and then there was that stupid, _stupid_ , glass of terrible scotch and it was still in one piece when he was.. _when he was not_.

" _But.. I have just seen her yesterday…_ " He heard himself murmured, not really thinking. People you know, people you _love_ do not get shot. It happens to criminals, into the bad neighborhoods, and it happens to some of his clients, and it happens on the TV to someone _else_.

Not into the courthouse. Not to his loved ones. Not to _her_.

" _Will, I'll call you back. I need to speak to the police, then I will call you back._ "

He inhaled deeply, like a man who was trying to save himself from drowning – and he probably was really drowning, in his own feelings – and he stopped her before she could end the call and leave him with no safe jacket at all.

"Send me the name of the hospital you are. I'm coming." And he ended the call, not wanting to argue with her – he knew she would't have, but still – and started to rush to call a cab, not feelings sane enough to drive with his own car.

His eyes were on that glass again and in a raptus he took it in his hand and throw it on the wall with a very satisfying and very loud crash. The mess on the wall, the thousands of shards of glass that once were one, did not help his mood at all but at least something _else was_ in pieces.

Will walked away without a second glance.


End file.
